Tesla Motors saw a successful second quarter with more Model S sales than expected and even surprised Wall Street with an adjusted profit.

For Q2 2013, Tesla reported a loss of $30.5 million (26 cents a share), which was much narrower than the $105.6 million ($1 a share) loss in the year-ago quarter. The automaker had an adjusted profit of 22 cents, which beat expectations of a non-GAAP loss of 17 cents. In the year-ago quarter, Tesla reported a profit loss of 89 cents.

Revenue jumped to $405.1 million compared to just $26.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Analysts expected a revenue of $383 million for Q2 2013.

Also notable is that Tesla's production rate increased 25 percent to almost 500 vehicles per week (up from 400 previously). Tesla sold 10,500 Model S sedans in the first six months of 2013 and plans to reach a rate of 40,000 annually by late 2014.

For the third quarter, Tesla expects to deliver slightly over 5,000 Model S' and a total of 21,000 worldwide for the whole year.

Tesla shares jumped up to $153 in after-hours trading, which is a 14 percent boost from its Wednesday close at $134.

For Q1 2013, Tesla reported a net income of $11.2 million (a huge increase from an $89.9 million loss in the year-ago quarter). Excluding certain items, Tesla's profit came in at 12 cents a share, which was a boost from a loss of 76 cents a share in Q1 2012. Analysts expected a profit of about 4 cents a share. Revenue also saw a huge year-over-year boost, totaling $562 million (up from $30.2 million in the year-ago quarter).

Tesla has become quite a hero in the auto industry. In May, Tesla repaid its $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nine years earlier than expected from the original 2022 due date.

This was mainly due to its decision to issue more stock the week before. Tesla said it wanted to sell about $830 million in shares, and use $450 million in convertible senior notes (which are due in 2018) along with sales of 2.7 million shares (valued at about $229 million at the time) to pay back its federal loan. This is an especially crucial detail in Tesla's history, considering other plug-in hybrid electric automaker Fisker Automotive (which also received a DOE loan) has failed miserably.

More recently, Tesla has had a few other victories, such as a win in the battle against auto dealers when a North Carolina House committee denied a bill that would block Tesla from being able to sell its vehicles directly to the public.

Tesla has also started showing off new tech that could transform the electric auto industry. In June, Tesla unveiled a convenient alternative to waiting for a Model S to charge -- battery swapping. The idea behind battery swapping is to easily open the car chassis to pull the battery out and replace it with a fully charged one. This saves the driver from having to wait for their battery to charge before traveling.

After that, Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel said that the automaker is working on a charging system that would get drivers out of the Supercharger stations and back on the road with a full charge in just 5 minutes.

quote: For Q2 2013, Tesla reported a loss of $30.5 million (26 cents a share), which was much narrower than the $105.6 million ($1 a share) loss in the year-ago quarter. The automaker had an adjusted profit of 22 cents, which beat expectations of a non-GAAP loss of 17 cents. In the year-ago quarter, Tesla reported a profit loss of 89 cents.

Tell me that without the constant stream of free Green money and tax breaks Tesla receives, that this wouldn't be an absolutely abysmal situation for a business!

Without the constant stream of free Green money, Tesla would not have expanded as quickly, nor spent as much. So the balance sheet may well have looked quite different.

A relatively small loss this quarter is nothing compared to what's coming. Everything is in place and everything actually works; the factory, the car, the charging stations. Constant free PR, and Consumer Reports "Best car ever tested". Demand actually exceeds production, while major competitors sell 100 EVs/year. This is a phenomenal situation for a business, especially a burgeoning car business.

The only thing left to see is if Tesla can hit their goal of 25% margin as expected. Shouldn't be too hard with the recent price increase, the addition of more options, cost-cutting (no more boron aerospace-grade bolts or whatever) and steady gradual increase in efficiency of production.

Many companies are built and maintained with handouts and cronyism. Do you think GM should have been bailed out? To paraphrase you, if you don't, you're a hypocrite. But even if you don't, the point stands.

quote: Without the constant stream of free Green money, Tesla would not have expanded as quickly, nor spent as much.

Tesla wouldn't exist without it, frankly.

Musk is a smart man. Just follow the money. ALL of his endeavors since Paypal have been based on cashing in on all the free Green Obama public money. Tesla, massively subsidized. SpaceX, massively subsidized. Solar City? Yup, you guessed it.

Not a single idea or business of his can stand on it's own. I realize it's smart business to have the taxpayers assume all the risk so you don't have to anymore, but I damn sure don't have to support it.

quote: Funny how Liberals don't mind the 1% so much, as long as their agenda is furthered.

Most liberal politicians ARE the 1% which is hilarious! They get on TV spewing crap like rich people need to pay their fair share. Well, LOL, YOU are rich too and you'll be paying your "fair share" along with the rest of them. They never include themselves. It's always "them".

Exactly, which is why we call it "Class Warfare". People like me and you see right through it.

What's depressing though, is how effective this scumbag tactic has worked on the average American voter. Obama and his Communist Congress (tm) is the most divisive President ever, literally spreading dishonest class-based vitriol and tearing our society apart, all for a political agenda.

Oh please. Obama wouldn't have had a chance of a second term if Romney and GOP didn't tar half the country as useless sponges.

The US has "soaked the rich" for all of its sustainable and successful periods in the last century. When it didn't (before the depression and after the Reagan era), private debt exploded in an extremely unsustainable way.

That created an imaginary economy where 15-25% of it was funded by net debt creation, which obviously helps the economy at the time, but it creates a ticking time bomb.

You keep ranting about public debt, but private debt is currently ~40 trillion dollars . It was a hair under three times the GDP just prior to the recession.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why that happens: The less you tax the rich, the more they save (they're not going to spend/invest even close to all of it), and the more debt is created out of those savings. Some debt is good. What we saw since the 80's is unsustainable and a disaster in the making.

Every business will tell you that their biggest impediment to hiring is demand. Investment in equipment is at an all time high as % of GDP, and it can't go any higher without new demand.

Increased consumption, then, is the ONLY way to increase employment. So how do YOU suggest we get it?

To claim that Obama doesn't engage in class based attacks, which is a daily tactic of his, and that it's not divisive - destroys whatever credibility you think you have.

And did you seriously just repeat the Leftist lie that Romney said that about half the country? He was taken completely out of context. It was recorded at a strategy meeting, where he simply said he wasn't going to spend extra time and campaign money on people who would never care about his message.

But yeah, that totally was calling them useless sponges. LOL! Man you're a riot. Do you have MSNBC on your favorites list?

Really your pitting the Reps against the Dems ???REALLY?They are BOTH as bad as bad can get - and no politician is better than another. Doesn't matter which part he may be from. STOP putting us all in a political party.

When did I say that? You were the one that blamed class warfare solely on him.

All he wanted to do was raise taxes on the highest income earners by a few percent, still leaving them with tax rates far lower than virtually every other developed nation. That's it.

People like you then ruthlessly attacked him as a marxist/socialist/commie, putting him on the defensive to detail why the rich should pay any more.

quote: But yeah, that totally was calling them useless sponges.

Fine, he didn't say 'useless', but he laid out in detail how they are sponges. There's nothing out of context about that, even if he was talking about voting behaviour (that's actually worse, because he's implying they're sellouts). Even him saying they pay no income tax is insulting when payroll taxes still regressively reduce their paychecks.

It wasn't just that speech. The GOP repeatedly ranted about about unemployment insurance and other entitlements making people not want to work, as if they're all lazy bums choosing to stay jobless and unworthy of assistance in hard times.